


Man's Torments

by dawnstruck



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Reverse Reichenbach, Russian Translation Available, mentions of past substance abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstruck/pseuds/dawnstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a Friday and Watson is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man's Torments

It is a Friday and Watson is dead.

  
That is a fact.

  
Another fact is that she died in a plane crash along with the pilot of the small glider provided by the Reichenbach Company, that they went down on the ocean just somewhere off Long Beach and that their corpses could not be recovered.

  
Sherlock attends the burial of an empty coffin. Watson's mother and siblings are crying at various degrees of distress, her stepfather a silent figure of comfort. Her biological father is, of course, absent. Then there are colleagues, lots and lots of colleagues. From the precinct, from the hospital. Friends of varying importance, former mentors and neighbors, classmates. Former lovers. People who knew tiny parts of Watson, who cherished her courage, her outspokeness. Her dedication and studiousness.

  
Maybe they know the way she held a scalpel in her hand or how she would brush strands of hair out of her face first thing in the morning, before turning towards the sunshine that crept in through the window.  
Sherlock knows all of that, too. Knows which tea she prefered when she was menstruating and which coat she would wear when she would have rather stayed in bed. Knows which shampoo she used and where she had gone to school.

  
But he likes to think that there are other parts of her that only he got to see. The look in her eyes when she felt guilt when wishing death on someone. The tension in her shoulders, just before she let her anger erupt, short but pointed, so often directed at him.

  
He hated those moments when she was disappointed at him, when he failed to live up to her expectations.

  
Now, he wants nothing more than have her throw plates at the floor in an imitation of his petulance. He wants her to throw out his chemical experiments and to play awful 90s pop music in the morning and to sleep with his brother. He wants her to be there and annoy and nag him. He wants her alive.

  
They bury an empty coffin and he returns to an empty home. Only his head feels like bursting.

 

 

Watson is dead and Sherlock is not using.

  
That is his one small victory. His defiance.

  
His thoughts keeps spinning and spinning as he distracts himself with whatever else he may find, books and TV commercials and watching Clyde eat a piece of lettuce at an agonizingly slow pace, and he will not think of her, and then – all of a sudden – everything will come to a screeching stop before... silence.

  
Utter, horrible silence and the knowledge that she is gone forever.

  
That silence is what he fears the most, what he hates, what he dreads because it tempts him to put something crass and noisy into his veins, to shoot oblivion into his bloodstream like he had done once before.  
Drugs were the escape he turned to when "Irene" "died". He dug himself out of that hellhole, but Watson had been the thing that kept him going. Straying from the right path now, after all this time, would be a disservice to her friendship, the good she had done him.

  
She was his sober companion. He may have lost his companion, but he will maintain his sobriety.

 

 

Sherlock is not using, but everyone keeps looking at him like he might break.

  
It is understandable. They keep checking for signs, all of them, believing they are practising subtlety when, in fact, they couldn't be more obvious. Miss Hudson is cleaning the Brownstone so thoroughly that her explanation of spring cleaning is only a thinly-veiled attempt of looking through all the drawers, moving around furniture and testing for lose floor boards. Captain Gregson will lean in close during conversation and closely peer into his eyes to see if they are blood-shot. Detective Bell invites himself over unannounced, just to sit on the sofa and watch him as if constant surveillance is the only thing that will keep him from a relapse.

  
And then, once a week at least, Alfredo drags him to meetings, were he will sit stiffly and absent-mindedly listen to other people's problems without ever saying anything himself. There are many others whose stories are similar, who got addicted as a means to escape, who relapsed after losing someone.

  
They talk about it, about their pain and their guilt and their fear for their future, and he cannot open his mouth.

  
It's not that he tries to delude himself into believing that by not talking about her death it will make it any less true. Instead he feels that, if he mentions her, tries to put her into words, she will... fade. That immortal part of her that she had given to him by coming into his life is not something he would dare to share with strangers – or with any of his aquaintances.

  
He cannot think of them as friends now. They were Watson's friends, if anything. He introduced her to many of them, but it was her who went for drinks with Bell, who talked to Gregson about his marital problems, who exchanged recipes with Miss Hudson. Somehow, Sherlock realizes that he was just a tag-along. Watson was the glue that kept everything together. Now it's falling apart.

 

 

Everyone keeps looking at him like he might break, except for Moriarty.

  
He visits her, just a months after the funeral, and of course she already knows.

  
The look on her face is not quite a smile, but not an expression of compassion either.

  
The big canvas from their last visit is still there, Watson, larger than life, yet cold and motionless. Other, smaller ones, have joined this centerpiece that Moriarty has arranged around the gallery so that wherever he looks he finds Watson staring back at him. It's not just portraits, though. There is one of Watson in traditional Chinese garb, and another of two naked females twisted around each other in ecstasy. He wonders how much of this Moriarty truly painted for herself and what was just meant to rub salt into Sherlock's wounds.

  
“Would you like one?“ Moriarty asks and gently runs her fingers across Watson's cheekbones, down along her neck and to her bared breast, “As a memento.“

  
“I do not need your obscene fantasies to remind me of my dearest friend,“ Sherlock tells her, his eyes averted before sitting down on the couch.

  
“Had any obscene fantasies of your own, hm?“ Moriarty tuts and sits down as well, “No memories, though. Never quite got to that part. I've been told she slept with your brother, though. And here I thought she had good taste.“

  
“You will not insult her,“ Sherlock warns, “Not now, not ever.“

  
“I admired her, after a fashion,“ Moriarty admits casually, “I'm curious to see how long you will be holding up now. Will you be shoot yourself up again? Will you be that predictable? Because that would be an even greater disappointment than when you did it after I killed Irene.“

  
"I wish," he says, his palm hovering in the air in front of his face as if it were a barrier separating him from her harsh words, "I wish you had truly died back then and Watson were the one to return to life."

  
For a moment Moriarty just looks at him. Then a small, insincere smile spreads over her thin lips.

  
"Wishing is futile," she tells him calmly and he nods jerkily, "I know. I know and yet... I cannot help myself. What else do I have if not hope?"

  
"In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments." Moriarty says and he sends her a withering glare.

  
"Really now. Quoting Nietzsche? How quaint of you." he reprimands her, a crease forming between his brows.

  
"Have you always been this... this small? This insignificant?" he asks, tilting his head to the side as if he were inspecting one of her near perfect replicas, only now noting its flaws, "I used to stare at you for hours, talk to you, and be so amazed by everything that came out of mouth, words and saliva and breath. That's all you are now. Spit and wasted air. Is it... is it me that changed or you?"

  
She shrugs her slender shoulders and vaguely gestures around the room, the gallery, her personal prison, "Being contained within concrete walls 24/7 will erase a person's mystique. And also, you were in love with me back then. You could have studied my shit and been enamored with it."

  
"True," he agrees, "If somewhat vulgar."

  
"Now, though, it's Joan that fascinates you." she points out, "But she's gone. So what do you do? Lie in her bed and try to smell the last traces of her on her pillow until it all eventually fades to nothing. Put on her favourite shirt? Use her tooth brush?"

  
She laughs, a trilling, empty sound, a nightingale in a cage, folding her legs and placing her hands on her bent knee. Sherlock looks at her and wonders how he could ever have imagined a future with his woman. He had wanted her in his life so hard, so desperately that when she vanished it broke everything apart.

  
Watson... Watson just showed up at his door against his will, on his father's orders, and he resented her with every fiber of his being, he wanted her gone, gone, gone, this constant reminder of his shortcomings, of his failure.

  
He had wanted Irene to not be dead and she wasn't. He had wanted Watson to disappear and she did. His wishes had come true, but always a little bit late, always a little bit off.

 

 

Except for Moriarty, he does not seek out anyone's company.

  
Not that he ever really did before. He lets Miss Hudson clean around him, lets Bell enter when he shows up uninvited again. He dutifully answers Alfredo's phone calls and is there when Gregson needs him on a case. He maintains civil relations with the officer's at the precinct, is reasonably polite when interviewing witnesses, even attempts vapid smalltalk with the cashiers whenever he can be arsed to go shopping.  
He spends many hours reading and re-reading his favourite works of fiction. He has found a new-found appreciation for The Catcher in the Rye. His libido has all but withered and died.

  
One of his usual intimate companions calls him once, months after he has last spoken to her. He listens to her smoky voice, imagines her copper hair and the thought of intercourse nearly makes him vomit on the spot. He think up an excuse, promises to call later and never does.

  
His letters to various friends and persons of interest taper off. There is a glass wall between him and world and he likes it this way. He can watch and listen if he cares to do so, but nothing can ever touch him. No one can get close.

 

 

 

He does not seek out anyone's company, and life still goes on.

  
There is still murder and betrayal. He solves his cases as proficiently as always.

  
He used to think of his life as Before Irene and After Irene. Now it has turned into Before Watson, During Watson and After Watson. Three acts. The climax has passed and he is waiting for the curtain fall.  
Will there be another one who will slither their way under his skin as Irene and Watson have done before? Will he allow it, only to be hurt again? He cannot imagine it.

  
He used to remind himself every day that Watson would leave again eventually. That her assignment as his sober companion would be over, that she would fall in love and get married, that she would finally be fed up with him and simply leave – and yet all of that seemed so implausible. So unlikely.

  
Instead he saw himself here with her, in this house, solving cases, drinking tea, watching bees on the roof.

  
All these things he can do on his own, but none of them appeal to him anymore. The cases are as bland as the tea. The bees all look the same to him.

  
He named those bees after her. Back then, he thought it a grand gesture. Now he knows that it was never enough.

 

 

Life still goes on and suddenly a year has passed.

  
It is spring again and everything but himself is reawakening. New York has never look so grey.

  
The anniversary of her death passes without anything to mark it.

  
The next day he goes to her grave, for the first time in twelve months. There are flowers there, already withering slightly, left by those who did their duty and were reminded of their grief yesterday.  
Sherlock does not bring flowers. His grief is constant. Not even the entire world's flora would be an accurate representation of what she meant to him.

  
He stands there with his hands in his pockets, the air still unpleasantly cool on his cheeks, and simply starts talking. For once he does not know what to say, but the silence in his head is unbearable and he tries to fill it with useless blathering.

  
When he stood on this same cemetery in front of a different grave, it seemed to him that Alistair appeared to reassure him. To comfort him. To tell him that one lost life did not equal the end of another, did not make the world implode.

  
He talks and talks, but Watson does not appear. Her headstone remains cold and silent. Maybe because her body was never brought here, because she lies forgotten in the unforgiving depths of the sea.

  
It is only when his cheeks grow hot that he realizes he has been crying since the moment he laid his eyes on her carved name.

 

 

A year has passed and Mycroft is back.

  
He had been curiously absent for most of the time, probably licking his wounds.

  
His infatuation with Watson had been strange and disgusting, but more than that Sherlock placed blame for her death on his brother, for getting them involved in that god awful case that Sherlock never even solved, but that put Watson on that stupid plane over that stupid ocean.

  
He should have been on that plane, but he had been waylaid and Watson offered to cover for him and then it was too late.

  
When he got there, the plane was already down, Mycroft waiting with a sober expression on his ugly mug. And Sherlock had made it even uglier, had beaten his fists against his bastard brother who would not even fight back, who stood there and took it because both of them knew that it was their fault.

  
And Sherlock had hated himself then for even having taken drugs, hated Moriarty for taking Irene from him, had hated his father for hiring this woman to look out for him, this woman who had deserved so much more than to die in his stead.

  
Now Mycroft is sitting in an armchair in the living room and his nose is still crooked from when Sherlock broke it, and he has steepled his fingers in front of his face, lips resting against the tips, and he is looking at Sherlock and looking through him and looking very thoughtful.

  
“There is something that you don't know,“ he says and then he starts talking.

 

 

Mycroft is back and apparently he's been playing James Bond this whole time.

  
While Sherlock had been led to believe that his choice of career had been the exotic one, he is now presented with the reality that all along Mycroft has been working as a spy.

  
He's got a long winded story about how he first got into it and how he resigned when he first got sick, before setting up the Diogenes Club so that eventually his old employers contacted him again and their men on the inside set up the Diogenes as a convenient meeting point for various crime bosses. How after that first blow-up, people wanted to see Joan bleed.

  
“So what you are telling me,“ Sherlock summarises crisply, “Is that if Watson wasn't your fault before, it definitely is now, because you knew what you were getting her into and you did it anyway. You claimed you wanted to start a life with her and then you got her killed, because you've got a hero complex and got careless. Is that it?“

  
“Not quite,“ Mycroft hedges, “There's still more.“

 

 

He's been playing James Bond this whole time, but there's an even bigger surprise.

  
“You should turn around now,“ Mycroft says carefully, wriggling his fingers uncertainly, “And do try not to faint.“

  
So with narrowed eyes, Sherlock does turn around. And almost does faint.

  
Because there, in the doorway, stands Watson.

  
He can tell that it is not a lookalike because he knows her, he knows the way her feet stand apart when she is waiting for someone to attack, the way her arms are crossed in trepidation, how her lips purse for lack of words.

  
Her hair is longer, her cheekbones sharper, but it is her, and she is pale, not in death, but in anxiety. And she is breathing and alive and whole.

  
“Hi,“ she says and her voice shakes a little, “I, Sherlock, I'm so sorry. And I can explain, but I know that's no excuse and I've hurt you, I can never make up for that, but I had to do it, I had to do it.“

  
And her lips are pursed no more, the words keep pouring out, a waterfall, an avalance, and Sherlock has crossed the distance between them in three wide strides before engulfing her in his arms.

  
She is real beneath his skin, flesh and bone and shaking hands as they come up to clench around his shoulders, and he is burying his face in her hair, pressing kisses against the top of her head as she sobs against his chest.

  
“Everyone thinks I'm dead,“ she is crying, “My mother and my siblings and everyone. But I only wanted to call you. I wanted to call you and tell you and I'm so, so sorry, please forgive me.“

  
“There's nothing to forgive,“ he tells her and he is crying, too, “You're alive, you're back. That the only thing that matters.“

  
He has never seen her cry before, not like this, and he does not know what she must have gone through during those months, what she must have witnessed, what Mycroft's schemes made her do.

  
“You can tell me as much or as little as you want,“ he says reassuringly, carding his fingers through her hair, “Now, how about we just drink a nice cup of tea? I got your favourite.“

 

 

There's an even bigger surprise and this time, not even Mycroft knows about it.

  
“I love you,“ Watson says and her eyes are reddened and she sounds angry, as if Sherlock were to blame for it all, “I love you and it took me so long and I couldn't tell you and you deserved to know and-“

  
“I love you, too,“ Sherlock interupts her and it is possibly the first time since his seventh birthday that he has said those words to a living being.

  
“Of course, the last time I was in love, it all went terribly wrong because the object of my affections had a secret identity and disappeared from my life,“ he amends, “But considering you already did that, I hope we can now turn to the more pleasant parts of an amorous relationship.“

  
“Yes,“ she says and pulls him down into the armchair where minutes ago Mycroft had still been sitting, but who is now mysteriously absent.

  
“I wonder which one of us is more emotionally stunted,“ Watson mumbles against his neck, her face still wet and hot, “The one who needed someone dying to realize his feelings, or the one who needed a super secret mission of espionage.“

  
“All is well that ends well,“ Sherlock says vaguely instead of answering the question, “That shall suffice for now.“

  
“Not quite,“ Watson is saying, “Can I take you up on that cup of tea now?“

  
So he gently extracts himself from her embrace and shuffles into the kitchen to prepare a pot. While he waits for the water to boil, his gaze falls on the calender on the wall.

 

 

It is a Friday, and Watson is alive.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea had been ghosting around in my head for a few weeks now and last night's episode gave me the final push. Mycroft's background and Sherlock's delicious emotional outbreaks were just so good to pass up, so I wrote it in one go, without a clear structure in mind. The blatant shipping at the end caught me a little by surprise, but I hope you liked it. If Joan seems a little OCC, I maintain that she has been through quite some shit and is finally able to let it all out.  
> Feedback is appreciated.
> 
> EDIT: Vasilika has taken the time to translate this story into Russian on https://ficbook.net/readfic/4153047


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